Is Apple worried about the Galaxy S IV? We’ve already seen LG take aim at the Samsung handset, trying to draw potential customers over to its currently available Optimus G, but now we hear about Apple trying to downplay the relevance of the GS4’s launch, with company exec Phil Schiller decrying Samsung for releasing the phone with out-of-date software.

Schiller brings up “…the news we are hearing this week that the Samsung Galaxy S4 is being rumored to ship with an OS that is nearly a year old,” noting, “customers will have to wait to get an update.”

That just sounds all kinds of wrong. Chances are, we’ll see the GS4 arrive with at least some Android 4.2 build, rather than a 4.1 release from last summer.

More to the point, the Android version is just one small component of the Galaxy S IV’s software package, and unlike an iOS device where the bulk of important features are ingrained in the OS itself, Samsung appears to be decking the Galaxy S IV with a whole lot of its own software, giving it capabilities above and beyond those of a plain vanilla Android.

Sure, Android fragmentation continues to weigh upon the platform, and far too many users are running software that’s unacceptably old, but the Galaxy S IV feels like a really poorly thought-out target for this kind of rage.